"I want to empower myself as a single individual" - Sarah

 

"I don’t know want to get political. I don’t like the mentality of my community. I was married young and divorced young. I felt ashamed, and traumatized about what society thought of me after that. I struggled a lot. But I finally came out of that phase, with God’s support. I feel like now I stand with confidence. Like, I’ve been divorced and I accept it. I mean, the Prophet married women who had been divorced. Now I walk into community events with a different mindset. I don’t care what people think anymore."

“Have you thought of re-marrying?”

“Maybe when I’m 40 [laughing]! I’m happy now, and I want to empower myself as a single individual first before even thinking about that.”

~ Sarah

"Death scared me and I still think about that." ~ Nicole

"Since you’ve become Muslim, what do you enjoy most about Islam?"

“I enjoy being around family and the community. And when you see any Muslim, you can say ‘salam’, which means ‘peace’ and you can strike a conversation with people you don’t even know. I love that."

"What has been the most difficult time in your life as a Muslim?"

“Losing my father was one of the saddest things I’ve experienced. He wasn’t Muslim, but he had a need to know what happens after death and I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to him about it from my perspective. He was looking for someone to talk about it, but I was too afraid to talk and whenever it came up, I kept changing the subject. Death scared me and I still think about that."

~ Nicole